The field of this invention relates to cooking liquid dispensers for applying a cooking liquid, sauce or glazing, hereafter referred to as sauce, to food as the food is being cooked.
During preparation and cooking of food, it is often desirable to apply a sauce to enhance the flavor and appearance of the food. Sauces are commonly applied to meats, fish, poultry and vegetables during cooking. Beside enhancing the flavor of the food, the sauce acts to protect the food from flame or high heat when the food is cooked over coals such as in a barbecue, stove or bakery oven. Also, cooking oil and other liquids are often applied periodically to food being cooked to replenish the moisture lost during the cooking process and to enhance the attractiveness of the food.
There are a wide variety of sauces used during cooking including honey, tomato based sauces, ketchup, spicy barbecue sauce, soy sauce, olive oil, sesame seed oil, vinegar, fruit juices, wines and various marinades. Thousands of recipes for combining these sauces into a particular marinade are available and often cooks develop their own special recipe. In addition, glazings such as syrup, egg, chocolate and the like are commonly applied to the surface of bakery items.
Food may be soaked or marinated in the sauce for a period of time before cooking to allow better absorption of the sauce into the food and to help tenderize the food. During cooking of the food, additional sauce is applied to the food periodically to replace liquid which naturally evaporates during the cooking process. Application of the sauce to the food during cooking is accomplished in various fashions. Perhaps the most direct manner is to open the oven or barbecue and pour the sauce directly from its container onto the food. This method ususlly results in portions of the food being covered with thick patches of the sauce while other portions are left with a very thin coating of sauce or none at all. Consequently, the cooked food lacks uniformity in taste, moisture and texture. In addition, pouring the sauce on the food usually results in sauce running off the edges of the food directly onto the oven surfaces or into the coals of the barbecue resulting in excessive smoke and a burned on layer of sauce on the oven or barbecue which then becomes very difficult to clean.
Another approach to applying sauce is to use a wide mouthed container or pan to hold the sauce and a basting brush. The brush is dipped in the sauce and then the sauce is "painted" on the food. This approach results in a uniform application of the sauce on the food and prevents sauce from running off the edges of the food. Also, the bristles of the brush help to roughen the surface of the food providing ridges or indentations for the sauce to adhere. However, because the basting is done periodically with a relatively short period of time between each application of the sauce, there is not enough time to clean the brush between applications. Thus, the brush is usually left on a counter top with sauce running off the bristles leaving an unsightly mess on the counter. Also, frequent and inconvenient dipping of the brush into the sauce is required to replenish the sauce on the brush. The redipping of the brush often introduces organic food particles into the sauce resulting in contamination. In addition, the sauce container is usually left open for easy access and the sauce looses much of its volatile contents thereby decreasing its flavor and bouquet. If cooking is taking place outdoors, both the brush and open container attract insects and thus create unsanitary conditions and inconvenience.
Another problem with the basting brush approach is that if two or more sauces are applied separately, it is difficult to control how much of each sauce is used. The brush soaks up varying quantities of the sauce depending on how long it is dipped in the sauce and the amount of agitation or movement the user applies to the brush while it is dipped in the sauce. This change in the amount of sauce applied can cause significant variations in the taste and thus lower the quality standard of the cooked food. Also, use of one brush with multiple sauces causes undesirable intermixing of the different sauces in their respective containers. This can lead to degradation of the pure taste of each of the sauces and in some cases ruins a particular sauce which otherwise could have been saved for later use. To prevent contamination of the sauces when multiple sauces are applied to the same food or when different sauces are used on different dishes being cooked at the same time, multiple brushes must be used which results in more of a mess. Yet another problem with the basting brush approach is that if sauces contain chunky ingredients, it is difficult for the brush to transfer such ingredients to the food and such ingredients usually end up unused at the bottom of the sauce container.
One approach to resolving these problems is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,796,806, issued Jan. 10, 1989 to Joyce P. Reid. That patent discloses a container for barbecue sauce having a manually operated spray pump mounted on top of the container. The spray pump outlet consists of a circular disk with multiple holes. Manually depressing the pump plunger causes sauce to be drawn out of the container and discharged out of the holes in an even spray. In this manner, the difficulties of the sauce pour on method of application are overcome and the mess associated with the basting brush is avoided. However, the spray applicator has a number of problems. Spraying the sauce in the form a fine mist or spray causes the volatile components of the sauce to evaporate before contacting the food. Also the sauce is not easily applied to crevices in food such as the folds in chicken wings. In addition, the spray does not roughen the surface of the food to improve adherence of the sauce or help to tenderize the food. Most importantly, the spray pump will not work with thick sauces or sauces that contain chunky ingredients.